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CHAPTER 16
Introduction
In this chapter, I will summarize the literature on how music and altered
states of consciousness (ASC) are connected. Essential aspects include
induction and expression of emotions and rhythmic body movements to
music and how an altered experience of music is connected to states of
altered temporality. Winkelman (2000) stressed the human capacity for
experiencing ASC as a fundamental biological function. Studies on brain
functions of altered music experience and temporality (Fachner, 2006b,
2009; Shanon, 2001) convey the natural bases of these phenomena, which
have been utilized in shamanistic practice for ages. As Rouget suggested:
To shamanize, in other words to sing and dance, is as much a corporeal
technique as a spiritual exercise. Insofar as he is at the same time singer,
instrumentalist, and dancer, the shaman, among all practitioners of trance,
should be seen as the one who by far makes the most complete use of
music. (Rouget, 1985, p. 319)
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Table 16.1
Ecstasy
Trance
Immobility
Movement
Silence
Noise
Solitude
In company
No crisis
Crisis
Sensory deprivation
Sensory overstimulation
Recollection
Amnesia
Hallucination
No hallucination
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2004; Fachner, 1998, 2007; Hanser, 2009), the core of which are a variety
of techniques such as drumming, dance, and music to alter consciousness.
The question of how music induces ASC remains unsolved in discussions
of the effect of music in music therapy and psychology (Ruud, 2001). The
effects of music in settings with a goal-directed therapeutic intervention
are based on models of modern music therapy (there are at least five major
models) and accordingly are a reflection of practice-related issues
(Aldridge, 1996). Whether the music itself has certain healing properties
or whether the therapeutic relationship in music is effective is an ongoing
discussion in music therapy research reflecting paradigmatic discourse of
biomedical and social science approaches in medicine: Is it the medicine
or the person that administers it that provides help (Fachner, 2007)? In
our topic here, we may also ask if it is the music itself that has certain
properties that per se induce ASC and healing or if music just accompanies
rituals that intend to induce ASC [see Mishara & Schwartz, Volume 2].
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not only the sound, but the therapist via the sound who affects the client,
and the client re-influences the therapist with his responses (Strobel,
1988, p. 121).
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parallel to differing parts of the music that were of high subjective valence
for the listeners. This occurrence was not locked to specific parts of the
music; there was no straight connection of strong emotions to musical boundaries like returning chorus, a sudden change of musical registers, and so
forth. This study illustrates how music functions as a catalyst of strong emotions that may lead to trancing (Penman & Becker, 2009, p. 64).
Physiological reactions (chills) are connected to reward circuits in the
brain. They intensify the personal experience and mediate the meaning
of the musical events, which are time-locked in their occurrence with specific moments inherent in the preferred or beloved music but are not necessarily locked to specific musical elements such as certain keys,
harmonies, tempos, or loudness.
The Role of Music in Evolution and Information Transfer and Social Bonding
Matussek (2001) proposes that the cultural matrix and the physiological effects of music complement each other functionally to produce a state
of amnesia and a willingness to assimilate new information. Freeman
(2000) proposes that music and dance were related to the cultural evolution of human behavior and forms of social bonding. He saw connections
in the cultural transmission of knowledge during ASC caused by chemical
and behavioral forms of induction. Alterations of consciousness produced
in this manner served to break through habits and beliefs about reality and
increase alertness for new and more complex information. In times of primarily oral information transfer, memorization techniques were required
to stimulate all senses for storing and processing that information. Musical
abilities in particular seemed to be important for an effective transfer of
knowledge.
Human musical expressive abilities evolved as a prelinguistic communication medium (Cross & Woodruff, 2009) and a framework prior to
language that was utilized for communicating context-sensitive and complex emotional codings in an ongoing symbolic frame of reference in
group interactions. Winkelman (2002, p. 78) stressed psychoemotional
group bonding processes engaged by chanting, an affective vocalization
and rhythmic medium that played a central role in human cognitive evolution through engaging biological competences that create empathy, group
solidarity, and cohesion. Vocalizations communicate affective states and
may mark territorial claims. Chanting provides a communication medium
prior to speech, extending forms of affective vocalizations shared with
other primates as well. The difference in musical expression in humans
and animals involves referential symbolism and classification of musical
It is a known fact from hypnosis research that there are personalities that
are more hypnotizable and susceptible to hypnosis than others. Therefore,
psychometric tools such as the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (Shor & Orne, 1963) have been developed to preselect such individuals
and to measure the depth of hypnosis reached (Meszaros et al., 2002). However, it seems that different personality traits and physiological constitutions
may also have their root in genetic differences [see Cardena & Alvarado, this
volume; Granqvist, Reijman, & Cardena, Volume 2].
The genetic bases concerning dance were reported by BachnerMelman and collaborators (2005), who found that professional dancers
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(as compared to athletes and a control group) had greater facility for serotonin transport and vasopressin response (serotonin is a neurotransmitter
that regulates blood pressure in the vessels [see Nichols & Chemel, Volume 2], and the arginine vasopressin receptor 1a regulates vasoconstriction/expansion due to specific amino acid activity). The different
interplay of serotonin transporters and vasopressin receptors may enhance
dancers social communication skills, courtship, and spiritual facets
(p. 394) as dancers compared to athletes and control group had higher
scores on the Tellegen Absorption Scale and the Reward Dependence Factor
of Cloningers Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire. Serotonin activity
in particular is linked to ASC, and
Altered serotonin levels in carriers of the SLC6A4 promoter region allele
might predispose such individuals to a greater ability for imagery and attention to stimuli (especially to musical stimuli) that we hypothesize may provide part of the hard wiring that talented and devoted individuals need to
perform in an art form that combines a unique combination of both musical
and physical skills. (p. 399)
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Globus et al. (1978) and Iannone et al. (2006) have shown that loudness scaling is state
dependent and can be pharmacologically altered.
To summarize, an altered temporality results in a different metric scaling of sensory events in the musical time-space and has an impact on perceptual and attentional processes (Fachner, 2000, 2009, 2011). Thus, we
may expect that, if the information in the time course of music rituals
becomes meaningful for the listener or performer, the brain will offer various strategies to zoom into specific parts of the music in order to process
basic musical features, such as pitch, timbre, and pulse, as well as
higher-level musical features, such as tonality, meter, and form, focused
in a state of hypofrontality or enhanced sensory perception.
Dietrich (2003, 2004) describes the function of frontal cortex in ASC, proposing that hypofrontality (a reduction of frontal cortex activity) results in a
flooding of information in the dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex. This results in
a state of consciousness primarily concerned with reception and processing
of sensory information, with less activity in the frontal and more activity in
the posterior parts of the brain, namely in the temporal, parietal, and occipital
areas. Further, in hypofrontal states, the perceptual, sensual bottom-up
processing of the brain dominates the limited capacity of the working memory
system located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. From a perspective of
hierarchically organized functional neuroanatonomy, this area involving
working memory, temporal integration, and sustained and directed attention
(Dietrich, 2004) is functionally changed during ASC in order to process an
increased amount of sensual information, which may only be possible in an
altered temporality and focus of attention. As the memory buffer reaches his
limit, we may forget the ingredients of complexity experienced in ASC.
Aldridge (1989a) states that we are patterned frequencies in a matrix
of time who improvise their identity out of a personal set found within
the situational settings in which we are located. The experience of time is
kairological (from the Greek kairos, a god of the right moment to decide),
which signifies personal, individual time, and also a chronological structure oriented to the geophysical concept of time as conventional time by
the clock. Kairological time emerges from personal perception of time
and time intervals and signifies the right time for doing something, deciding, or acting in the here and now (Aldridge, 1996). Anticipation of what
is coming up next and what is needed to be perceived is surely of vital
interest for humans so that it is not only important in terms of where to
place attention, but also when (Eagleman et al., 2005, p. 10,370).
Conclusion
Music and ASC are connected in various ways. One of the most
determining influences seems to be the context, the personal set and
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of ASC and altered temporality and might help to understand ASC processes in vivo.
Cognitive processing of music changes its modes of awareness on
musical elements during ASC. Rhythm, pitch, loudness, and timbre and
their sound staging in the perceptive field of a person seem to culminate
in a certain sound which, corresponding to the cultural cognitive matrix,
induces ASC (Fachner, 2006a). Rouget (1985) proposed that music features such as repetition, long duration, monotony, volume, and density
do not provide clear causal explanations for ASC induction, but the connection of time and space perception alteration resulting from music is
important (Christensen, 1996). Therefore, rhythm remains the target of
discussion for music-related ASC induction.
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